


twenty-one days

by alderations



Series: Whumptober/Mechtober 2020 [23]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Exhaustion, Gen, Immortality, Mechtober, Sleep Deprivation, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27172807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alderations/pseuds/alderations
Summary: Immortals don’t need to sleep, supposedly. That’s what Carmilla said the first time Ashes asked, but now they’re not so sure.It’s been nearly three weeks since they woke up on the Aurora, breathing freely for once in their life. Two weeks since Malone burned. And Ashes hasn’t had a wink of sleep the entire time, choosing instead to spend their nights pacing the hallways of this strangely amicable starship and trying to learn as much as possible about their new crew without anyone else catching on.(Whumptober Day 23: exhaustion/sleep deprivation)
Relationships: Ivy Alexandria & Ashes O'Reilly, Jonny d'Ville & Ashes O'Reilly
Series: Whumptober/Mechtober 2020 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950916
Comments: 7
Kudos: 71
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	twenty-one days

Immortals don’t need to sleep, supposedly. That’s what Carmilla said the first time Ashes asked, but now they’re not so sure.

It’s been nearly three weeks since they woke up on the Aurora, breathing freely for once in their life. Two weeks since Malone burned. And Ashes hasn’t had a wink of sleep the entire time, choosing instead to spend their nights pacing the hallways of this strangely amicable starship and trying to learn as much as possible about their new crew without anyone else catching on. Thus far, their findings are as follows:

Jonny d’Ville, first mate, is an asshole. He has tried to kill them several times for the mere sin of existing near him, though he’s never succeeded. He smokes the cheapest, shittiest cigarettes Ashes has ever seen, and he seems to think that he somehow copyrighted the concept of patricide.

Nastya Rasputina, engineer, is largely absent. Ashes has seen her twice, once when Carmilla forced an introduction, and once in the middle of the night when Ashes was fixing themself a cup of chamomile, back when they were still  _ trying  _ to sleep. Nastya’s hair had been a staticky rat’s nest, her eyes bleary and her neck dotted with silver bruises. Ashes doesn’t know how a starship can give someone a hickey, and they don’t want to find out.

Ivy Alexandria, archivist, is… okay. She’s a condescending know-it-all, but Ashes ‘mob boss since age eleven’ O’Reilly doesn’t have much room to talk. Ivy is almost as reclusive as Nastya, but when they have interacted, she’s been surprisingly kind, and she looks at Ashes with such unguarded wonder in her eyes that they find themself unable to meet her gaze.

Dr. Carmilla, captain, is a deeply, horrifically lonely person. Ashes can sympathize with that. They’re not sure how exactly it led her to immortalize several teenagers against their will, not when there are so many people in the universe clamoring to live forever. Then again, those aren’t usually the kind of people that any doctor in their right mind would  _ want  _ hanging around for eternity.

And that’s why Ashes isn’t sure where they belong in this equation.

Jonny might be an asshole, sure, but he’s fiercely protective of the others and he talks with Carmilla like they have a history Ashes will never understand. Nastya and Ivy both give off an air of childlike goodness, at least until they jump headfirst into ruthless slaughter alongside Jonny. And even if she’s going about it in a  _ very  _ fucked-up way, Carmilla seems to think that she’s bettering the universe somehow. All told, there is no place on this ship for a child mobster, much less the kind of person who burns down an entire planet without a shred of remorse, just because they’re desperate for revenge.

It’s only as Ashes gets caught on this thought that they realize they’ve been zoned out of reality for a few minutes. Their feet have carried them to the kitchen, probably because they haven’t eaten in hours and they need to keep their strength up to recover from having their fucking lungs replaced, according to Carmilla. But when they hover in the doorway for more than a second, Jonny stands up from the kitchen table and turns to scowl at them.

“What d’you want?”

Ashes sighs through their nose. “Food. What’s it to you?”

“Jonny, cut it out,” Ivy snaps from the other side of the table. She’s halfway through a bowl of mac and cheese that smells  _ delectable.  _ Ashes wobbles on their feet at the thought of how lovely it would be to eat that right now, and they’re so distracted that they barely notice Jonny until he’s up in their face.

They scowl up at him. “Do you need something?”

When he opens his mouth to respond, Ashes can’t hear his words. They feel like time skips a beat, leaving a gap in their consciousness where they’re just rushing toward the floor and falling through the static in their ears. Then they’re leaning into Jonny, their face squished against his shoulder, as he holds them by the shoulders and drags them toward the table. “Hey, hey, what the fuck,” he mutters, lowering them into his chair. “You falling asleep on us?”

Ashes blinks until the confused fuzz in their head starts to clear. “I… stop touching me,” they grumble.

“You literally just fell on me, ‘s not my fault!”

Honestly, they’re surprised he didn’t just let them fall. They still don’t really understand what’s happening, but Ivy scrutinizes them from the far side of the table and then reaches out to grab their hand. Unlike Jonny, Ivy’s hands are cool and grounding. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Haven’t. Carmilla said I don’t need to.”

Jonny rolls his eyes and steps back, finally giving them some space. “Yeah, she  _ says  _ that. You still need some kinda rest, though, and we know you’ve just been wandering around in circles this whole time.”

They don’t respond, both because they’re too sleepy to form words and because they don’t know how to say ‘I don’t trust any of you not to kill me in my sleep’ without, well, inciting murder. Hypothetically, they’d survive said murder, since they made it through the burning of Malone just fine, but they don’t want to find out. Once again, this train of thought takes them far away from reality, and they zone back in to find Ivy and Jonny arguing.

“They don’t want anything to do with you because you’re an unbearable human being,” Ivy insists. “I have  _ some  _ understanding of basic human decency. You know this.”

Jonny huffs. “I’m the first mate! It’s  _ my  _ job to make sure you’re all, y’know, not too dead. That includes forcing my crew to sleep.”

“‘M not  _ your  _ crew,” Ashes interrupts, flipping him off. “I don’t need anyone to put me to bed, because I’m not a fucking kid.”

Ivy stares at them, eyes wide, then raises her hands in an attempt to placate them. “That’s fair. We just—we both have experience with, uh, being freshly immortalized. You shouldn’t have to deal with it alone, now that you’re here.”

Pushing themself up from the table takes most of Ashes’ strength, but they still swat Jonny’s hands away when he tries to steady them, before turning and heading back toward their own pod. If sleep is what they need, they’ll get some fucking sleep, but they’ll do it on their own terms. “I’d rather be alone, actually. Don’t wait up.”

Neither Jonny nor Ivy follow them.

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to one of my best friends who is actually narcoleptic—while that's not what I was trying to portray here, they WERE very helpful in helping me milk the angst out of Being Physically Unable to Stay Awake. also i was like "hey sorry about that time i got mad at you for falling asleep when we were hanging out" to which they responded "i dont remember that, i was asleep." iconic.
> 
> anyway thank you everyone for the kind comments and saltines yesterday 💖 I probably should've gone to the hospital tbh but I am doing MUCH much better today and am definitely up too late posting this, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway. mx oreilly if you're out there i'm sorry for hurting you, I love you, please get some sleep you have a very very long life to live. readers on the other hand... also get some sleep, and comment, and I love you all.


End file.
